The 'nervous conditions' of neo-liberated higher education students
Date
2015
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Abstract
To the newly liberated citizens of South Africa, a higher education (HE) qualification
in 1994 represented both a means to a prosperous end, and a hope-filled end in
itself. Whichever party has managed to achieve political victory two decades later,
the current South African HE situation remains one that requires critical thought and
accurately applied resources from both the victors and others, because in failed HE
there can be no victors. HE fails when an abnormally high number of students either
fail or withdraw from their studies prematurely and involuntarily. This article aims to
redefine the HE mainstream by presenting a window into the hope-taken, hope-lost,
hope-deprived realities of a particular HE student body; their nervous condition. The
majority of students enrolled at transforming higher education institutions (HEIs) hail
from despairing socio-economic contexts. Desperation defines the neo-mainstream.
Universities embarking on a hope-generating road terminate that same hope should
they remain either ill-informed about, or non-sympathetic towards real-life situations of
neo-mainstream students.
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Keywords
higher education, nervous conditions, main stream